The executive director of A Rocha, Daryl Bossu has said that although some progress has been made to address the issue of illegal small-scale miners, a lot more work needs to be done.
He notes that the present government inherited the situation “and I sympathise with them because gives them a lot of work to do,” he said.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, had announced that seven out of the nine forest reserves that were completely overrun by illegal miners have been successfully reclaimed.
Speaking at a press briefing in Accra today, the minister revealed that a joint security task force—comprising the military, police, and the Forestry Commission’s rapid response team—conducted sustained operations over the past month to reclaim the affected reserves.
“The operations led to the confiscation of at least 60 excavators,” he added.
He assured the public that “everything possible” was being done to reclaim the remaining two forest reserves.
“I’m proud to tell you, with the cooperation of the security agencies and the military, we have taken back seven of these nine forests, and we are working very hard to ensure that the remaining two are fully reclaimed,” the minister stated.
But Bosu noted that a lot of the forest reserves are currently under siege by illegal small-scale miners.
He says the number of forests captured by the illegal miners was more than the 44 figure put out by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources.
“A lot of the forests are experiencing illegal mining, eating away the forests. We have more than 44 forest resources affected by illegal mining,” he said on the KeyPoints on TV3 Saturday, March 22.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah earlier revealed that 44 of Ghana’s forest reserves are under serious attack by heavily armed illegal small-scale miners (Galamsyers).
He says that the forest guards and rapid response team from the Foretsay Commission are unable to tackle these illegal miners because they do not have the sophisticated weapons that the gallamasyers possess.
Briefing Parliament on the state of Ghana’s forests on Thursday, February 20, the Minister said “Ghana’s forests continue to be under serious threats of deforestation and forest degradation due to factors known to all of us. Ghana is currently faced with an unprecedented threat to our forest resources and water bodies due largely to illegal small-scale mining activities.
“This situation has assumed crisis proportion of dire national security and public health consequences that require immediate attention.”
He added “Mr Speaker, it will interest you to know that out of the 288 forest reserves, a whopping 44 of these forest reserves are under serious attack by illegal miners, they are heavily armed with sophisticated weapons and very violent with a large number of excavators making it extremely difficult for a forest guard and rapid response to control them since they have no such sophisticated weapons to control them. Over 9 out of the 44 forest reserves have been completely taken over by these illegal mining thugs with impunity. The Forestry Commission no longer has access to these forest reserves. ”
Prior to his submission, the Minister for Environment, Science, and Technology, Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, had expressed the government’s commitment to win the fight against illegal small-scale mining.
Murtala assured that measures had been put in place to stop galamsey.
“There’s no denying the fact that politicians are engaged in galamsey… It’s shocking to note that as of 2022, the state had taken a decision to withdraw security forces who were preventing people from engaging in galamsey in all galamsey areas.
He assured that Ghanaians will see changes in the galamsey fight in a few months.
The post Galamsey fight: Progress made but a lot more needs to be done – Daryl Bosu first appeared on 3News.
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